Emilie Bagby specializes in designing and conducting rigorous evaluations in developing countries. She has worked on a variety of international development projects, including health and agriculture, with extensive experience in evaluating programs that aim to improve key education outcomes such as enrollment, retention, attendance, and learning. She also has experience measuring reading skills in local languages.

Bagby is the deputy project director for the School Dropout Prevention Program study, a rigorous evaluation of school dropout prevention pilot interventions in Cambodia, India, Tajikistan, and Timor-Leste, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She is also the deputy project director for an impact evaluation of a girls’ education program in Niger, funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation. As part of that project, she led the creation and implementation of early-grade reading assessments in several local languages, which are key outcome measures for the evaluation of the program. Bagby is also the lead for a USAID-funded impact evaluation of Espacios para Crecer, part of the Community Action for Reading and Security activity in Nicaragua for USAID’s Latin America and Caribbean Reads project.

Before joining Mathematica, Bagby studied human capital investment decisions made by resource-constrained households in developing countries, finding that higher-ability children receive more schooling and are less likely to be involved in child labor, and receive more nutrition investments than their lower-ability siblings in Burkina Faso and Ecuador. She also examined risk and protective factors and risky behaviors related to early school dropout using special youth surveys in Chile and Mexico.

Bagby publishes her work in peer-reviewed journals, such as Economic Development and Cultural Change. She is fluent in French and Spanish and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mathematica designed a rigorous evaluation of the girl’s education component in Niger. The component included public awareness campaigns, local action plans, tutoring and training, incentives for school-age girls and female teachers, and construction of classrooms and latrines.

The Niger Education and Community Strengthening program seeks to improve educational opportunities available to children while strengthening links between local communities and state structures. Mathematica is designing and conducting a rigorous evaluation of the initiative.

Mathematica is rigorously evaluating and determining costs for U.S. Agency for International Development investments in early literacy and access to education in conflict settings in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

Working with Creative Associates and other partners, Mathematica is assisting with the design, implementation, and rigorous evaluation of evidence-based school dropout prevention pilot interventions in four Asian countries—India, Tajikistan, Cambodia, and Timor Leste.